


what I've got (you've got to give it to your mama)

by Thorne



Category: Sports RPF, Swimming RPF
Genre: Humor, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-19
Updated: 2010-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorne/pseuds/Thorne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Holy shit, man," Aaron said, and shook his head. "Kinda looks like Ian Thorpe is gonna be your new daddy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	what I've got (you've got to give it to your mama)

**Author's Note:**

> For chickpea who wanted the Ian Thorpe/Debbie Phelps wedding announcement. Extrapolated from that clip of them embracing after Michael's last race at Beijing.

_"I am in a new relationship and I am very happy; except she lives on the other side of the world… It's very cool, but we want to see how it goes. She's a friend of a friend and we were introduced. She has all the qualities that are most important to me."_

-Ian Thorpe, [recent Woman's Day magazine interview](http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24056130-2,00.html)

***

It was just a hug. And a kiss. And, okay, some whispering, and the whole thing had _lingered_, and that was weird, but Michael was used to his mom freaking out when he raced; Whitney and Hilary used to argue over who had to be on hand-holding duty, and both of them refused to wear rings to his meets anymore after too many crushed fingers.

He wouldn't have even known about it if Aaron hadn't nudged him while they were all waiting for the on-deck Andrea Kremer interview, pointed at a screen where they were replaying audience reactions to the medley relay, and said, "Dude, Thorpe is macking on your mom." And then Andrea was shoving a microphone in their faces, and asking the same damn questions she'd asked, like, a thousand times before, and Michael had more things to worry about than who his mother chose to hug in post-race celebrations. Like, how was he going to restate the same answer he gave every time, and how stupid did his hair look, and whether he should thank Jason first or last, and whose hand was on his ass.

Everything was a blur for a while. He remembered walking through the mixed zone, trying not to get hit by microphones-- "I kinda just want to see my mom," he said to someone --then they were getting herded towards the medal stand, and someone was handing him a certificate, and then a medal, and then a bouquet. Then the anthem began to play, and Brendan was asking him if he needed a tissue.

It was _great_, even if he'd pretty much given up on ever being able to see again without spots swimming on front of his eyes, squinting as he tried to remember who invented the flashbulb camera and hoping whoever it was had ended up getting, like, dick cancer and dying horribly. He was lucky that he even managed to _find_ his mother and sisters in the stands, and he forgot to look for Thorpe until he had already climbed down and there was no time to go back. The medal ceremony escort girls were hot, but they also had scary-sharp nails and they didn't hesitate to jab him in the kidney if they felt he wasn't moving fast enough.

There was just enough time to get showered and changed before people were grabbing at him again and telling him that he had to be in six different places at once. God must've wanted to show he loved him, even more than the hundredth of a second touch, because there was a press room mix-up and he had seven minutes where no one was asking him anything at all. He leaned against the wall and concentrated on doing absolutely nothing while the press moved en mass from Point A to Point B.

There was a television mounted on the wall, and it kept streaming out clips of the races in all different languages, Chinese to English to French to Spanish to heavily Australian-accented English, which might as well have actually been another language for all Michael could keep up with the announcer.

"There it goes again," Aaron said, and Michael looked up in time to hear "--by the great Ian Thorpe!" and to see his mother onscreen. She was reaching down and Thorpe was reaching up. She cupped his face and kissed his cheek; Thorpe leaned in and she whispered into his ear. They put their arms around each other, and damn, Thorpe really was that tall that they were practically on the same level even though his mother was standing a row up. Thorpe let go and smiled at her; she smiled back.

"Huh," Michael said, watching.

"Holy shit, man," Aaron said, and shook his head. "Kinda looks like Ian Thorpe is gonna be your new daddy."

"Okay, shut up, that's my _mom_," Michael said uneasily, and then the press was bearing down on them like a wave.

And it should have been over. Like, he shouldn't have even had time to focus on a detail like Ian Thorpe, especially when he'd finally managed the best comeback possible to all the doubting quotes and flip interviews and pictures where Thorpe looked stupidly happy with early retirement.

It stayed with him, the same way his mother's hands stayed on Thorpe's face and shoulders, an unsettling image that lurked in the back of his mind and ambushed him whenever he was in the middle of talking. PR had written him up eight different sets of answer quips and potential sound bites for eight different gold medal-counts; he'd reviewed both the seven-gold set and the eight-gold set yesterday when it looked like things were almost wrapped up, but hell if he could remember any of it now.

But he kept shoving it away. And all in all, that was probably a bad idea, because that meant he got caught totally off guard at the Speedo party in the Wish Night Club later that night, when he turned a corner and stopped dead, because _holy fucking shit, his mother was sucking face with Ian fucking Thorpe._

Michael made a noise a lot like the time he'd accidentally walked into the bathroom door, and they broke apart. "Michael!" his mother said, hands instinctively jerking upwards to pat her hair. Thorpe looked slightly ruffled, and he was breathing a little hard, but his voice was a lot calmer. "Michael." He moved his hands-- and oh _God_, Michael's brain short-circuited to keep from processing where those hands had been.

There was a roaring in his ears and Michael was just trying to decide whether to punch Ian Thorpe or claw his own eyes out, when Ian looked past him, narrowed his eyes, and stepped forward to sling one arm around Michael's neck and flash a toothy grin for the photographer whose camera flash exploded in their faces two seconds later.

"Just offering my congratulations to the champ and his mum," Ian said breezily, and keeping his grip, dragged Michael off to a nearby booth, muttering under his breath, "keep smiling, don't make a scene, they're like sharks when scenting blood."

"_I will kill you,_" Michael hissed.

"Not in public you won't," Ian hissed back, but he was a lot better at keeping a smile on his face while he said it. "Think of your mum."

"That's _why_," Michael said, and Ian rolled his eyes and manhandled him into the booth.

"I expect you've got questions," Ian said bluntly, after flagging down a waitress for drinks. He pushed one of the glasses across the table at Michael. "Drink up, we'll probably both need this."

"My _mother_\--" Michael started.

"Is coming this way now," Ian cut him off. "And you wouldn't want to upset her, would you?"

"Michael, I am so very sorry," his mother said, coming up to the booth, and Michael had a brief shining three seconds of hope that everything was going to be okay after all, until she slid into the seat next to _Ian_ and continued, "I didn't want you to find out this way. I wanted to tell you in a better setting."

Hope went down in flames, and died screaming, alone in a field. "Do you have a brain tumor?" he asked. "Please tell me you've got a brain tumor."

"Michael!" his mother snapped, and he automatically muttered, "Sorry, mom," before burying his face in his hands. Maybe _he_ had a brain tumor. It was the most optimistic option he could come up with at the moment.

"Michael, look at me," she said a little more gently. "This is nothing to be-- well, I know it's a shock. And I'm sorry for that. But I'm not sorry for finding someone special who makes me happy."

"This is a really good joke," Michael tried, "you guys totally got me, great job. Seriously, did Aaron help? Good job. Please stop holding hands."

"No joke, mate," Ian said, and shrugged. "I'm sorry, too. About springing it on you like this. But some things just work out a certain way."

Then they were both talking, stuff about catching up at Melbourne and long distance phone calls and the draw of someone understanding a demanding schedule, but Michael wasn't paying attention to that any more; he was staring at his mother's hand. His mother's hand held in Ian Thorpe's hand. His mother's hand held in Ian Thorpe's hand with a diamond ring on her fourth finger.

"What," he said blankly, "_what._"

Ian's gaze followed Michael's. "It's from my line," he said, with no small amount of satisfaction. "I designed it."

"I always wanted you to have a male role model besides Bob," she said. His mother's smile was a little tremulous. " And since Ian's no longer in the competitive side of swimming…"

Ian squeezed her hand, and reached across the table and patted Michael's hand with the other. "I promise to be the best father figure to you I can possibly be, mate," he said, with a horrifyingly sincere smile on his face. "I'm going to make a man out of you."

Michael screamed and screamed and jerked awake in a cold sweat, thrashing in his sheets.

"_Huh!_" He stared dazedly around the room, trying to figure out where he was. "Fuck!"

"Whassat?" Ryan mumbled. "I'm not the lizard king."

"He did it again!" Michael insisted wildly. "Sonuvabitch!"

Someone pounded on the door; then it opened and someone came inside. There was a metallic jangle, a hissed noise of pain, and someone swearing. There was a brief scrabbling against the wall; light flooded the room, and after a few seconds of general blindness and _everybody_ swearing, Michael focused enough to identify Brendan, wearing nothing but boxer shorts, rubbing his head and glaring vaguely in all directions.

"It's like four in the morning," he said groggily to Michael, Ryan, a desk chair, and the cluster of hanging Olympic medals that he had walked into. "What the hell?"

Ryan immediately pointed at Michael. "'s him."

"He did it again," Michael insisted, but with less certainty than before. "My mom is a lady. She's classy."

"Did he have the dream about Thorpe marrying his mom again?" Brendan asked, and rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Michael, get help."

"Yeah, just, okay." He took deep breaths, trying to calm down. His heart was pounding worse than it ever did after a race; he could actually see the tic of his skin pulsing on his chest. "Uh, I think. I think had a nightmare."

"You have the weirdest dysfunctions ever," Ian said, leaning in the doorway behind Brendan. Aaron was slouching just behind him, squinting like a caveman. "It's like you have an Oedipus complex that had a baby with your competition drive, and then _that_ dysfunction shacked up with the offspring of your gayness for Thorpe and some penis envy."

Michael stared at him, appalled, because four in the morning was too early for words that big and he didn't want to think about anyone having babies ever after that nightmare. And he was pretty sure that Ian had just insulted his dick. "My penis is _fine_," he said, and of course that made Ryan start to snigger uncontrollably.

"It was totally Erik's turn to deal with this," Brendan muttered, still rubbing his forehead. "He and Jason are slacking. Team captain responsibility sharing, my ass."

"Are we having a party?" Aaron asked, yawning, "how come no one told me?" and Ian grabbed his elbow before he could either wander off to find guests or start removing his clothes.

"Nah, it's Mike, he had the Thorpe dream again," Brendan said. "Look, Michael, you're fine, you won eight gold medals, Speedo's giving you a million bucks, and Ian Thorpe is _not_ banging your mom."

"Unless this is also a dream," Ian added philosophically, and Brendan gave Ian a _look_. "Now shut up, think happy thoughts, and let everyone get some sleep," Brendan said. He turned off the light, and towed both Ian and a befuddled Aaron back out; the sudden darkness made Michael blink.

It was just all too fucking much for him. Too much. China and medals and Mark Spitz, his mom and Ian Thorpe, Ian Crocker's stupid long words. People kept asking him how he _felt_ and trying to make him eat freaky animal parts and 7,600 people wanted to be his friend on Facebook. He hoped London was easier to handle, because he wasn't sure he was going to make it to 2012, otherwise.

"You okay, man?" Ryan asked sleepily.

"Yeah, I think so," Michael said. He groped around in the dark until he found the medley relay medal that was still lying on the bedside table. The cool feel of it grounded him a little, reassuring in his hand. He lay down, trying to get comfortable. "Yeah," he sighed again.

"Jeah," Ryan said, and rolled over.

Everything was quiet. Everything was all right.

Until Ryan asked, "So, like, did he spank you in this one or was he just gonna tuck you in real tight--?"

Michael kept the light on, and didn't get back to sleep at _all_.


End file.
